Rochelle Owens: Beloved the Aardvark, Part Three

 

[The third and concluding section of Owens’s major opus]

 

Evolution is smart

clean  clear and simple  gaps

in the sequence of

 

events laid down and eroded away

 

hungry or thirsty

eat or drink  body of data 

data of body

 

audible inaudible

the rhythm the rhythm of

spontaneous change

 

letters spell out

 

o b l i t e r a t e

 

a jaw opens and closes

carnal/spiritual

 

vigilant the babe sucking

 

              *

 

On a giant computer

screen  vibrating subatomic

particles shape

 

the contours of a skull

 

and in your

mammalian brain  tendons

and nerves pulsate

 

craving  licking

burning chunks  rupturing flesh

cinnamon  cumin and honey

 

five lambs

slaughtered for the feast

carnal/spiritual                                                                                                               2              

 

 

             *

 

Under an occult sky                                                                                                  

of greens and yellows the tattoo

artist bites into an apple

 

chewing and swallowing

moisture and nutrients flow in

the tattoo artist’s brain

 

seized with jittery energy

 

chewing and swallowing

inhaling exhaling  a layer of skin 

the skin

 

a montage of bite marks 

 

 

chewing and swallowing

inhaling exhaling  the breath blowing

kisses along the digestive tract 

 

spirals of veins

pulsate from mouth to rectum 

blood in  blood out

 

seized with jittery energy

 

chewing and swallowing

inhaling exhaling  drawing zigzags

of black lines

 

a layer of skin the skin

the canvas absorbing sunlight 

inhaling  exhaling 

 

drawing zigzags

of black lines  drawing a fetal skull

sprouting tooth buds

 

the universe

contains everything that exists 

letters that spell out                                                                                                         3

 

r u i n s c a p e

 

           *

                                                                                                                                            

After waking

and lying down trust your

instinctual senses

 

disturbingly informative

 

tears  mucus 

albumen  a goat smile

on your lips

 

       *

Long ago 

an hour ago  only a minute 

in the here and now

 

in the zone

diverging from a course

of events

 

spirals of wind and fire

 

layers of brown dust

 

        *

 

Out of an ant hill

curved like an embrace

a waft of air

 

and morning

to evening and evening

to morning

 

audible  inaudible

an unknown word  letters

that spell out

 

A m f a t t e h r

 

       

                *                                                                                                                 4

 

The bones that form                                                                                                                                                                                            

the Aardvark Venus  rays of light

penetrate your fingers                                                                                             

 

drawing black lines 

spirals of muscles  blood vessels

a long cylindrical tongue 

 

biomorphic  geomorphic 

polymorphic  corkscrews of white

smoke 

 

slashes  slashes of solar light 

 

           *

 

Long ago  an hour ago

only a minute  a black line

shapes itself 

 

an image on a rock

subatomic particles pulsate

the universe contracts

 

e x p a n d s

 

           *

 

The warmest of mothers 

moves in circles  massive her claws

digging  searching

 

body of data  data

of body  the Aardvark Venus

her rabbitlike ears

 

heating to the

temperature of human skin 

a long cylindrical tongue

 

work is a binding obligation 

 

blood in  blood out

her breast vein as thick as a finger

mounds of sand appear 

 

disappear 

lines of ants appear  disappear                                                                                             

a hissing sound

 

suffer the Aardvark children 

                       

           *                                                                            

                           

Listening to Willie Nelson                                                                                                         

you witness a lovely desert sunset

a goat smile on your lips

 

mounds of sand appear

disappear and morning to evening                                                                            

evening to morning                                                                                                 

                                                                                                                      

9 breakfasts  5 lunches  6 dinners                                                                       

 

white the summer blossoms 

a girl in your arms  hungry or thirsty 

eat and drink

             

           *

 

On the wall of a cave

in the Sahara  in a zone diverging

from a course of events

 

disease  famine  torture  war

 

in a sacred refuge or a tomb

 

Behold!  the Aardvark Venus

 

luminous the overlapping

charcoal drawings  charcoal fed

with wind and fire

 

charcoal fed with blood and sunlight

 

           *

 

Earth  Air  Fire  Water

 

hormonal forces evoke                                                                                               

the rhythm of spontaneous change                                                                           6

inhaling  exhaling

 

moisture and nutrients

flow through your mammalian brain

inhaling  exhaling

 

the universe contracts  e x p a n d s

 

seized with jittery energy                                                                              

 

inhaling  exhaling

flexing  contracting  evoking

the rhythm 

 

the rhythm of spontaneous change

 

disease  famine  torture  war

 

rays of light

penetrate your vulva  scrotum

sphincter 

 

illuminate your heart 

your hand cupping the little god

mounds of sand appear 

 

disappear 

out of an ant hill curved

like an embrace

 

Earth  Air  Fire  Water

 

 

[AUTHOR’S COMMENT: “To look at the image of an Aardvark is to take a cosmic Rorschach test, and like a cubist mural is both a microcosm and macrocosm. You understand Intuitively — a Cartesian resolution of body and spirit. The poem presented here is the third of a series of poems titled ‘Beloved the Aardvark,’ related I suppose to the poem ‘Devour Not the Elephant’ that appeared earlier in Poems and Poetics.” (Rochelle Owens). 


And Marjorie Perloff on the unique power and pitch of Owens’s exploratory work, from the 1960s to the present: ‘Rochelle Owens’s writing … is sui generis. She is, in many ways, a proto-language poet, her marked ellipses, syntactic oddities, and dense and clashing verbal surfaces recalling the long poems of Bruce Andrews and Ron Silliman. But Owens is angrier, more energetic, and more assertive than most of her Language counterparts, male and female, and she presents herself as curiously non-introspective.” 


Part One of Beloved the Aardvark can be found here on Poems and Poetics, and Part Two can be found here.]